The field of the disclosure relates generally to control systems and, more specifically, to methods and apparatus for gradually altering vehicle or process dynamics to prevent exceeding pre-specified limit(s) while maximizing achievable performance.
Known vehicles and controlled processes with control augmentation systems rely on state limiters to prevent the exceeding of predetermined state limits. These limiters typically activate once predefined envelope boundaries are exceeded and introduce sharp changes to control characteristics once active. The resulting nonlinearities make analysis using conventional control system methods difficult or invalid. Moreover, known state limiter methods require extensive design and test iterations specific to each individual application, imposing significant repeated costs. In addition, such state limiter methods often represent ad-hoc engineering solutions and do not provide stability or performance guarantees.
Accordingly, a need exists for an application-independent control system that gradually modifies the expected behavior of system dynamics as specified criteria are approached or exceeded.